Free Dreamsnake by Vonda D. McIntyre

love.”
    “It’s so hot … ” She started to raise her head,
shifting her weight. She froze with a gasp. Information entered Snake’s mind
without any conscious effort, a cold inhuman analysis she was trained for:
bleeding into the joints. Internal bleeding. And in her brain?
    “It never hurt like this.” She glanced at Snake without moving her head.
“It’s something else, something worse.”
    “Jesse, I—” Snake was first made aware of her tears by the taste of salt on
her lips, mixed with the grit from the desert’s dust. She choked on words. Alex
crept back into the tent. Jesse tried to speak again, but could only gasp.
    Merideth grabbed Snake’s arm. She could feel the fingernails cutting her
skin. “She’s dying.”
    Snake nodded.
    “Healers know how to help—how to—”
    “Merideth, no,” Jesse whispered.
    “—how to take away the pain.”
    “She can’t … ”
    “One of my serpents was killed,” Snake said, more loudly than she had
intended, belligerent with grief and anger.
    Merideth did not make a second outburst, but Snake could feel the unspoken
accusation: You couldn’t help her live, and now you can’t help her die. This
time it was Snake’s gaze that fell. She deserved the condemnation. Merideth let
her go and turned back to Jesse, looming over her like a tall demon waiting to
fight beasts or shadows.
    Jesse reached out to touch Merideth but drew her hand sharply back. She
stared at the soft center of her palm, between the calluses of her work. A
bruise was forming.
“Why?”
    “The last war,” Snake said. “In the craters—” Her voice broke.
    “So it’s true,” Jesse said. “My family believes the land outside kills, but I
thought they lied.” Her eyes went out of focus; she blinked, looked toward Snake
but did not seem to see her, blinked again. “They lied about so many other
things. Lies for making children obedient … ”
    Silent again, her eyes closed, Jesse slowly went limp, one muscle at a time,
as if even relaxation was an agony she could not tolerate all at once. She was
still conscious but did not respond, with word or smile or glance, as Merideth
stroked her bright hair and moved as close as was possible without touching her.
Her skin was ashen around the livid bruises.
    Suddenly she screamed. She clamped her hands to her temples, pressing,
digging her nails into her scalp. Snake grabbed for her hands to pull them away.
“No,” Jesse groaned, “oh, no leave me alone—Merry, it hurts!” Weak a few moments
before, Jesse struggled with fever-fired strength. Snake could do nothing but
try to restrain her gently, but the inner diagnostic voice returned: aneurism.
In Jesse’s brain a radiation-weakened vessel was slowly exploding. Snake’s next
thought was equally unbidden and even more powerful: Pray it bursts soon and
hard, and kills her cleanly.
    At the same time that Snake realized Alex was no longer beside her, trying to
help with Jesse, but had crossed to the other side of the tent, she heard Sand
rattle. She turned instinctively, launching herself toward Alex. Her shoulder
rammed his stomach and he dropped the satchel as Sand struck from within. Alex
crashed to the ground. Snake felt a sharp pain in her leg and drew back her fist
to strike him, but checked herself.
    She fell to one knee.
    Sand coiled on the ground, rattling his tail softly, prepared to strike
again. Snake’s heart raced. She could feel the pulse throbbing in her thigh. Her
femoral artery was less than a handsbreadth from the puncture where Sand had
sunk his fangs into muscle.
    “You fool! Are you trying to kill yourself?” Her leg throbbed a few more
times, then her immunities neutralized the venom. She was glad Sand had missed
the artery. Even she could be made briefly ill by a bite like that, and she had
no time for illness. The pain became a dull, ebbing ache.
    “How can you let her die in such pain?” Alex asked.
    “All you’d give